CHRIS WALLACE: Is it reasonable to say to a rape victim who might not know they're pregnant until 6 weeks, 'don't worry about it, because we're going to eliminate rape'?
GREG ABBOTT: The goal is to protect the lives of every child with a heartbeat
No word on how he’s going to end incest but I doubt he thinks it’s much a problem. Family values, dontcha know:
He’s sticking with his plan to “eliminate rape” in the state of Texas so the little ladies don’t have to worry their pretty little heads about it anymore (and can continue the pregnancies they brought on themselves with their reckless decision to have sex instead of being good girls like God intended.)
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace repeatedly pressed Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday over the lack of an exception for rape and incest in his state’s near-total abortion ban, wondering aloud if Abbott’s bizarre promise to “eliminate” rapists was “reasonable.”
Earlier this month, the Texas governor defended his state’s sweeping and highly restrictive abortion law that eliminates nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy—an extremely narrow time window in which most women are still unaware they’re pregnant. Besides essentially allowing bounty-hunting by private citizens to enforce the law, Senate Bill 8 also lacks any exceptions for victims of rape or incest.
“Let’s make something very clear,” Abbott said on Sept. 7. “Rape is a crime. And Texas will work tirelessly to make sure we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them, and prosecuting them, and getting them off the streets.”
Interviewing the conservative governor on Fox News Sunday, Wallace replayed Abbott’s remarks saying he would “eliminate rape” before noting that in 2019 there were over 15,000 rapes reported in the state of Texas, adding that number is almost certainly an extreme undercount.
“Is it reasonable to say to somebody who was the victim of rape and might not understand that they are pregnant, you know, until six weeks, ‘Well, don’t worry about it because we are going to eliminate rape as a problem in the state of Texas?’” Wallace asked the governor.
“Well, there’s multiple things I have to say in answer to this but the first thing obviously is that survivors of sexual assault, they deserve support, care, and compassion and Texas is stepping up to make sure that we provide that by signing a law and creating in the governor’s office a sexual assault survivors task force,” Abbott responded. “But separately from that, Chris, I got to point out about the ways that I have fought to go to arrest and apprehend and try to eliminate rape. I sought the death penalty.”
Cutting Abbott off, the veteran anchor once again reiterated that there were thousands of reported rapes under the governor’s watch, noting that a GOP state legislator has proposed a measure to the abortion law that would provide rape and incest exceptions.
“If that came to your desk, will you sign it or not?” Wallace pressed Abbott.
Deflecting the question, the governor said the reason the law was passed in the first place was to “protect the lives of every child with a heartbeat,” prompting the Fox News Sunday moderator to fire back: “Including the child of a rape?!”
Abbott asserted that the law was “consistent” with the Supreme Court’s position, which is that “states have the ability to make sure that we protect the health and safety of both the mother and the child.” Wallace, meanwhile, interjected once more in order to get a direct answer from the governor.
“Just to lock this down, are you saying, sir—I don’t mean to interrupt—but are you saying that you will not sign an exception for rape and incest?” Wallace confronted Abbott.
“First, I’ve got to tell you, Chris, you’re making a hypothetical that’s not going to happen because that bill is not going to reach my desk,” the governor casually replied. “But second, again, the goal is to protect the life of every child with a heartbeat.”
The 6-week “heartbeat ” he’s referring to isn’t really a heartbeat:
Within the last few years, six U.S. states — Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Iowa, and North Dakota — have passed so-called “heartbeat bills,” a term that’s become shorthand for a proposed ban on abortions beginning six weeks into a pregnancy, or the point at which a “fetal heartbeat” can be detected. Four more states have similar bills pending. Anti-abortion activists have doubled down on “heartbeat” messaging — in a recent news release regarding the ACLU’s legal challenge of the Ohio bill, the state’s leading anti-abortion group, Ohio Right to Life, used the term eight times in 300 words.
But obstetricians say the term “fetal heartbeat” is misleading, and that this scientific misunderstanding, among countless others, may contribute to negative public opinion toward abortion.
To wit: though pulsing cells can be detected in embryos as early as six weeks, this rhythm — detected by a doctor, via ultrasound — cannot be called a “heartbeat,” because embryos don’t have hearts. What is detectable at or around six weeks can more accurately be called “cardiac activity,” says Robyn Schickler, OB/GYN and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. The difference between “cardiac activity” and “heartbeat” may seem linguistically minimal, but Schickler and others argue otherwise. At this stage, she says, what doctors can detect is essentially communication between a group of what will eventually become cardiac cells.
“From very early on, different cells are programmed to do different things for what is eventually a fully functioning human body,” says Jennifer Kerns, an OB/GYN and professor at the University of California in San Francisco. “These are cells that are programmed with electrical activity, which will eventually control the heart rate — they send a signal telling the heart to contract, once there is a heart.” It is this early activity which ultrasounds detect — not a heartbeat.
Embryos don’t have hearts. But real, live women and girls do get raped, sometimes by their own family members. Greg Abbott doesn’t care about that. Neither does he care about the one third of American women who seek the basic human right to maintain control over their own reproduction. He’s got a primary to win and nothing on this earth matters more than that to a Republican officeholder.